Established in 1995, in commemoration of Abbey Dawn in Kingston, Ontario.Questions and comments welcomed.

Forgiveness, however, is difficult and poses a problem for many people simply because they are not clear about what forgiveness really is.

All too often forgiveness gets confused with reconciliation.Reconciliation is a separate step from forgiveness.It may be a component of a larger process - but forgiveness is but one part. And at this point we are speaking only of forgiveness; not reconciliation.

Forgiveness is hard work, very hard, and it is so tempting at times to avoid it; which is self-defeating. If you remind yourself that you are doing it for yourself, not the other person, it is easier to do the necessary inner work.

Anger, Bitterness and HatredOnly when you forgive can we remove the hurt and let healing power flow in.The most common response to being hurt is anger, bitterness and hatred.

But all that emotion that we carry around inside you doesn't affect the person you are angry with,or whom you have come to hate.

It only hurts you, even more than the original hurt.

It festers and grows, prevents happiness and joy, and will affect your health.

But only when you have fully confronted (faced) it, and come to understand it: forgive, let go, and then forget – but remember the lesson."Forget" in this sense means to move it from the forefront to the back of your mind, reducing its intensity,and into the garbage can of other relatively “less devastating, and no longer really painful, relevant” memories.

Since emotions are powerful aspects of our being, they can trick you into a false sense of security as easily as working at it, for if you don't, sometimes when you least expect it, the destructive feelings over some past hurt you thought you'd forgiven and forgotten, return to start their negative process again.

Anger, bitterness and hate are difficult to eradicate. You may have to repeat the process several times to finally get rid of them; and the deeper the hurt, the longer it may take. But as you persevere, over time it will begin to happen.

Let's take a closer look at the process: (1) who or what is our anger, bitterness and hate directed at; the person who did it, or the thing they did? There is a big difference.(2) Who or what is we're forgiving? The person who did it, or the act/words etc they committed? Here too, there is an important difference.

Act vs ActorHurt vs Hurter

You see, because of the emotional intensity and the soul-pain, we tend to blur these two things together, and it is this that heightens and increases the difficulty in the forgiving; we don't want to be cruel or mean, yet at the same time, we have to make the hurt and pain go away. That's why it is important to determine for ourselves, which it is we want or need to actually deal with: the person, or the thing that was done.

It may be a person we love(d) or like(d) who had never done something of that nature before, and the incident was a one-of sort of deal. Or it was a person with a history of being nasty and cruel, but we had "overlooked", denied and excused it until now.So the questions is: was it done because they were (1) a bad, nasty person, perhaps even cruel and evil, or (2) a decent person who made a terrible mistake?

Situation 2 is easier to deal with, once we separate the elements out: because depending on our decision, we can continue to love the Person, but hate the act - and focus our feelings on that, making it easier to forgive, because that person is human just like we are, and prone to making the occasional mistake. It is not a crime to be human, but it is wrong and not acceptable to make devastating mistakes of that nature. Hence, perhaps we can bring ourselves to forgive it and let it go, and give the person another chance - it will take time to get really comfortable again, but over time, that will come - that's the power of forgiveness and the detoxifying step we took in this case.

Situation 1 is a different story altogether: for we need to ask ourselves why we excused or over-looked, or denied what we actually were "aware of" at the important level of our being; because by doing so we became an agent of that person and helped bring the horror on. This is not an easy thing to do, because accepting responsibility for our part in it is very difficult: in large part, because we're angry at ourselves for doing so.That means two things: we have to

Forgive the other person, and/or their action, or both

and Forgive ourselves for our part

There is no easy solution to this one. One option is to forgive the act, AND resolve to change our connection with that person; or to forgive the person as well as the act, and let them go out of our lives - they had a history of proving that they were not the kind of companions you needed to surround yourself with.Maybe by doing so you'll demonstrate to yourself that you are strong, and have courage, and that letting that load go is better all the way around than carrying it any longer.

I hope this will be of help to you. It still won't be easy. One thing that makes it difficult is th struggle with yourself.

I cannot tell you which decision(s) to make - but can only encourage you to make one that will detoxify your soul, heart and spirit.

Anyone who has ever been victimized must decide whether or not to forgive the perpetrator.

There can be no middle ground to this decision: either you decide to forgive the person who hurt you; or you hold on to bitterness and anger.

Holding on to bitterness and anger causes problems of their own. If you have ever been victimized, being able to forgive your victimizer is a crucial part of your healing.

Forgiveness, or forgiving someone, is often seen as weakness. A long time ofinvolvement with people has convinced me that this view is wrong: it is an actof courage and strength.

Another thing people tend to forget is that it is as important to forgive yourself - it is a way to move on - to learn from the experience, and then let go of it.

When we forgive, we heal ourselves, and sometimes others. Most important of all, perhaps, is the fact that sometimes in order for us to be able to forgive someone else for their transgression, we have to forgive ourselves for our own first.